NBC's Pay-Per-View Marathon: No Thanks

NBC will be providing streaming video coverage of next Sunday's New York City marathon, which is great. Not so great: It's charging $4.99 to watch the live webcast.

The release trumpeting the news doesn't explain the thinking behind this, so we'll take a guess: NBC, or its advertisers, are afraid of cannibalizing its own network broadcast of the race. But this isn't the NFL, it's a niche sport: Although the local NBC affiliate usually covers the event live, NBC's national broadcast only provides a one-hour wrapup hours after the event instead.

More puzzling is that the day before, NBC is providing live New York marathon coverage online: On Saturday, it will stream the U.S. Olympic trials for the men's race, which will start at Rockefeller center. NBC Sports.